Simulating life on a deep space mission

The HERA mission is an exercise in living and working in the isolation and confined spaces necessary for missions to Mars, the asteroid belt and beyond. Viviane Richter gives a guided tour.

Thirty years ago, the world was glued to televisions, witnessing the Space Shuttle Challenger blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Then, just 73 seconds into flight, it burst apart, killing all seven members of the crew.

One of those witnesses was Julielynn Wong. Then a fifth-grader, now a physician and engineer, she is one of four women who set foot in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) module at the Johnson Space Center for 30 days.

The experiment is designed to simulate a manned mission into deep space and has been going since 2014, with rotating crews of four people living in isolation for 30 days at a time.

The crew members only have contact with each other and mission control not even access to the internet.

The current crew of four women took up residence in the habitat 30 years to the day after the Challenger disaster.

The Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) habitat. – NASA

The crew may be confined to a two-storey habitat not much bigger than a one-bedroom apartment but that doesn’t mean there’s much standing still.

The HERA crew works 16 hours a day, five days a week, each jam-packed with a busy schedule of meals, exercise, meetings, research and housekeeping.